Fertility Preservation for Women Diagnosed with Cancer

The most common question asked in IVF counsellings is “Doctor, as we have heard, we need to do complete bed rest after embryo transfer or I can move around. Do you think 15 days leave is sufficient.” So it’s time to give away this myth forever now.

Factors Affecting Implantation of Embryos

The implantation of embryos placed inside your uterus after embryo transfer depends upon three most important factors:

• Quality of eggs
• Quality of sperms
• Receptivity of endometrium.

Debunking Myths for IVF Success

Moreover uterus is a collapsed cavity with opposins walls and a closed cervix. If the embryos are placed inside the uterus at their proper position then few minutes after embryo transfer they remain at their same stable position and in no ways they will fall down even if you stand after the embryo transfer.

Going by literature, various studies have been conducted in which pregnancy rates were compared between the groups who were made to get up 20 minutes after the embryo transfer and those made to rest for varying periods from 3 minutes to even 24 hours in some centers. But no difference was found in the pregnancy rate and the live birth rate. In certain systemic reviews and meta analysis it has been shown that complete bed rest might negatively affect the outcome of IVF/ICSI cycle and the cause may be stress and anxiety mechanism.

So a lot of evidence is against the bed rest factor. Even at Reviva we have seen pregnancy rate comparable between the bed rest and no bed rest groups. I can recall many positive results even in those patients who jump out of bed even half an hour after transfer and those joining their offices the very next day. But inspite of clinical evidence we daily come across patients who had undergone failed cycles at other centers or one of their relatives had undergone treatment elsewhere and were advised complete bed rest after transfer and to the extent that they were kept hospitalized for 24 hours.

All this increases the anxiety factor in the patient. Very obvious that lying on bed the whole day is not easy and the thought process is totally focused on one thing and more of stress and negative feelings. How do you think it’s going to help the success rate. And if unluckily the results negative than the female takes the whole burden on her. She thinks it didn’t work because she didn’t have sufficient rest.

Piece of Advice

So our advice to all our patients, don’t go on house arrest of 2 weeks. Take it easy and carry out with your normal activities. Rest is not going to influence your outcome. So relax, be normal and wait for nature to do its best.